I'm still here...

Hey y'all... it seems a couple of you out there missed me, what with the not blogging for almost a week. Sorry! I didn't mean to utterly disappear like that. We've been so busy with painting, you have NO idea. Part of the painting required disconnecting the computers and internet so we could move things from one room to another. Yes, I even went for an entire day without access to the internet. *shudder* Yesterday, for example, we painted our bedroom. The bedroom with the vaulted ceiling and 15 foot high walls. This morning? I cannot raise my arms above my shoulders. Yee-OUCH. The good news is that with the exception of some trim areas and the inside of Kiddo's closet, the upstairs is ALL DONE. (And there was much rejoicing.) Also, Hubby busted out the paint downstairs over the weekend so the back hallway and downstairs bathroom are finished as well. All that remains ("all" - ha HA) is the stairway, front foyer, great room, kitchen and laundry room, then we're through with Paintathon '09 - Do it in the Winter When You Can't Properly Ventilate!.

In other news, Friday was Kiddo's Valentine's Day class party, followed by the big Valentine's Day dance that night. Despite it not starting until Kiddo's normal bedtime, and despite the price we knew we'd pay for letting Kiddo get off her schedule (have I mentioned that kids with SPD really don't do terribly well when they're off their routine? 'Cause they don't!!!), we let her go to the dance. She lasted for one fiercely-energy burning hour, during which she barely stopped moving as she whipped through her second, third and fourth winds, before she came over and actually asked us if she could go home and go to sleep. Also on Friday, we learned that we are the lucky family chosen to keep Mr. Bear for the winter break. You see, Mr. Bear is this teddy bear that visits with one child from Kiddo's kindergarten class each weekend. That child brings Mr. Bear with him/her for everything the family does and then documents all the excitement in Mr. Bear's journal, complete with photos, which then gets shared in school the following Monday. Mr. Bear comes with his own luggage, toothbrush, pillow and blanket and stuffed animal, along with a large wardrobe. We first had Mr. Bear over a weekend in November. To have Mr. Bear for a whole week (actually, NINE days) is a big deal for Kiddo. Mommy, however, was less than excited. That's a lot of adventures and documenting and such........ Kiddo has another cold right now, (Hubby has it too but so far I've avoided it *knock freshly painted wood*) so Mr. Bear's adventures have mainly been of the "sitting on the couch and watching March of the Penguins or playing quietly in Kiddo's room" variety. Hopefully we'll get to do something fun that doesn't involve paint rollers before the week is out. We didn't "do" Valentine's Day this year, swimming as we were in five gallon buckets of Soft Ecru, but such is life. Kiddo did bring us each home a chocolate heart from her day with her grandparents, who so very graciously and kindly picked her up yesterday at a little after nine and kept her until late afternoon. Oh, and here's something: the people right across the street from us just put their house on the market yesterday. Their house is smaller than ours by about 100 square feet, has no basement (it's a split level - oooh, sorry, a "contemporary raised ranch" according to their real estate agent) and has only a one car garage, and their lot, while the same size as ours, backs up to another street of houses whereas ours backs up to a pond and woods, yet they've listed it at the same price we were planning to list ours for once we're all done with the freshening up. Hmmm. Not sure if our real estate agent will want to raise the price on ours by a bit (we've got the two car garage, the extra 100 square feet, the full basement, better positioned lot and have a colonial instead of a split level) or if he'll want to list at our originally intended price, thereby making our house the better option of the two on the street...

So, that's me. Woozy from paint fumes, fairly sick of soft ecru, and wishing the Paint Fairy would turn up and wave her magic wand so that we didn't have to paint the two-story foyer or 16-foot high great room walls. (Suddenly, I'm much less enamored of our cathedral ceilings....)

I shall leave you with a few pictures from the past few days, and a hearty recommendation as well.

Here are a few of Kiddo (and Mr. Bear, who was her date) from the dance on Friday night:







This is Mr. Bear hanging with Kiddo's Stuffed Animal Entourage. He's the one reclining against her pillow. (Yes, she has way, way, way too many stuffed animals. We know. Also, each and every one of those stuffed animals has a name, and I know them all. No wonder I can't remember simple things like the three items I went to the grocery store for - my brain is FULL!) Note that he is in his jammies. He doesn't actually sleep in bed with her, but rather on the floor next to her bed.



And this is the recommendation. If you ever have to move ANY piece of furniture, run down to Walmart or Target or wherever you can and buy yourself some of these:



They make moving furniture (like a queen-size bed and two completely full dressers) a total breeze. Like I moved our bed around the room by myself. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy! (We didn't even buy this official "As Seen on TV" brand, but rather the knock-off brand available at Wally World. Still worked like a dream!)

And now, I'm off to eat my oatmeal and figure out what to paint next.....................